


Carry Them With You

by jonesyslug



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie goes off, Fuck Stephen King, Richie Dies AU, as always:, i fucking hate the quarry scene so..., it's a one shot but it has 2 chapters because there's an alternate extended ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25646191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonesyslug/pseuds/jonesyslug
Summary: Pennywise has been defeated, and after all these years, it's finally The Losers Club's turn to rest and celebrate. But Eddie is not feeling very victorious.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up from a dream, crying, and started writing this. 
> 
> Here is your fic song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4OBgaV4GYc

Bill playfully splashed some water towards Eddie. Eddie stared down at where it splashed the rocks around him. 

"Come on, kid, you've been in the sewer. There's no way this is worse." Bill teased. 

Eddie stared down. He wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting there with his arms crossed, letting the sun bake all the crud from the sewer into his clothes and skin. He could feel himself frowning, though. A deep, full-faced frown with his eyebrows drawn down. Something Myra always minimized by calling it a pouty face. 

Ben swam up beside Bill to help in the effort to cajole Eddie into the water with the rest of them. 

"C'mon, Eds! It's nice! We-" he chuckled. "I think we should get a second of  _ nice,  _ don't you? After beating the clown? A little victory lap for the winners, yeah?" 

Eddie looked up finally. Saw Bill and Ben's matching grins. Saw Mike and Bev further back, laughing and pushing each other under the water. 

The bending reed of his silence snapped. 

"Except we  _ didn't  _ win, did we, Ben?" 

It was incredibly loud. It echoed all through the ravine. 

Everyone stopped splashing. Everyone stopped smiling. 

"The-the fucking  _ thing _ might be dead, but you know what else? So is Richie. So is Stan." Eddie said, slicing his hand through the air to emphasize his points. 

With an angry huff, he stood. "They're fucking  _ dead.  _ We didn't win!" He shouted. "Winning was supposed to mean walking out of this together,  _ all of us."  _

Bill and Ben looked at each other guiltily. 

"The whole lucky seven. We were supposed to fight together. Live or die  _ together.  _ And now- now there's only fucking five of us and you're splashing around in that filthy fucking water like nothing is wrong! Like we really did something!" 

Mike and Bev had swam up closer during his tirade. 

"We did do something." Mike said, quietly. "We killed It, and now Derry is free. The kids are safe. The-the  _ world  _ is safe." 

Eddie clenched a fist and turned on his heel to look at Mike. "You don't actually  _ know _ that, do you?" Eddie asked, with a sudden and disarming calm sincerity. 

Mike sputtered for a moment. 

"Eddie, relax..." Bill said, sternly. 

"No! Fuck you! I- I know I was a coward in there!" He said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of Neibolt. "I was a coward in there and I have to fucking live with that, but you know what? I tried to make it up." He said, gesturing to his chest. "I really fucking tried. And I was- I was the  _ only  _ fucking one who was trying when Richie died, so fuck all of you!" He looked down at them with vitriol.    
  
He looked back at Bill with flaming eyes. 

"You get to scream at me in there because I was scared and you get to say things are my fault,"    
  
He swept his arm out and gestured to Ben and Beverly as he looked at the group.   
  
"You get to come out the other side and have a fucking happy, fairy tale ending!"    
  
He dropped his arms. He gave them all a quiet look of disgust.   
  


"All the while, I've got his fucking blood all over me because I held him when he died and none of you seem to give a fuck!” He yelled, his anger rising again. “All this fucking while I've been thinking about Stanley, I was carrying his token with me…" Eddie paused to breathe. Bev thought he might start crying. 

He pointed at his chest with his hands. "I had to carry it, and it fucking felt like I was carrying Stanley around through all that. The way I should have the first time. Because if I had been holding onto him the first time, none of that- He wouldn't-” Eddie paused when his jaw clenched in anger, his finger pointing to the sky. He closed his hand into a fist and unclenched his jaw. “If we had been holding on last time, maybe he-" 

Eddie continued pacing and raked his hand roughly through his hair. "I never even  _ met  _ his wife, and all I can think is the sheer grief and  _ pain  _ she must feel because  _ we  _ took her husband away!" 

He looked at the group, all of them floating there in stunned silence with their mouths open slightly. 

Ben looked like he was about to say something, but Eddie held his finger up to silence him, and continued. 

"Richie went to his service. I bet you didn't know that. He was the only fucking one of us who went." Eddie put his hand on his forehead and sighed. "The only one who went to his Bar Mitzvah,” he said, with a gesture of his hands to the left. “and the only one who went to the fucking synagouge to say goodbye to him.” He said, doing the same motion to his right. “He went, to honor him,” Eddie said, bringing his fist down onto his open palm. “to remember him,” he said, punctuating it with the movement again. “and now that's dead too. It's all gone.” Eddie sighed and stretched his arms out limply at his sides and tilted his face towards the sky, like he was making his last appeals to a higher power. “Everything we had left of Stanley, and it died with…”

Eddie was breathing heavily. His heart was racing. He turned and looked at his friends once more. 

"Go ahead. Go ahead! Enjoy your victory! But I hope this fucking haunts you:” he said, pointing at them. “ _ we thought we killed it last time."  _

Eddie clamped his jaw and turned, starting the long walk back towards the townhouse.   
  


Bill climbed out of the water to go after him, and everyone followed. Bill caught up with him and grabbed his shoulder.    
  
“Eddie-”   
  
“Fuck!” Eddie spun around. “What more do you fucking want from me?” He asked Bill. He was still full of anger, but the energy in his soul was completely empty.    
  
“Eddie, I don’t know, I just want- Jesus, you realize what you’re doing? Making us all feel like shit. Like we’re the ones that killed them, when-”   
  
“ _ We were!”  _ Eddie screamed. Bill stumbled back slightly in shock. Mike caught his shoulders.   
  
“They didn’t want anything to do with it in 1989 and they sure as hell didn’t want anything to do with it  _ now!” _ _  
_ _  
_ “They made their own choices, Eddie.” Beverly said, a desperate plea of innocence.    
  
“They did. They did, and so did we. You know what I fucking hate? I hate that I know  _ exactly  _ what was going through Stan’s mind when he got in that fucking bathtub.”   
  
Everyone stood in silence. Eddie shook his head, letting out a frustrated sigh.    
  
“We didn’t hold on tight enough, don’t you get it? Way back then, we didn’t protect him. We’re the reason he had to wear those bandages on his head all summer, not the clown. And today…  _ Today,  _ none of you seem to give a shit that- We did it again! I did it again! I didn’t hold on tight enough and Richie got- That thing that looked like Stanley it-”    
  
Eddie took in a wheezing, uneasy breath, and patted his pocket, looking for his inhaler. Then he remembered.    
  
He put his hand on his chest to try and steady himself. “We did it again.” He said, slower. “And you all just want to go back to your lives.... Richie had one too, you know? I mean did any of you even  _ hear  _ Stan’s wife on the phone? The devastation in her voice? We don’t even- Richie didn’t mention his family. Didn’t talk about his life. We don’t even  _ know  _ who he left behind. His parents are probably still alive. His sister. Fuck, she might even have kids. He might be an uncle. And- and we don’t know if he had a-a partner or something, he might have been living with someone for all we know and we-you- I- everything just-”   
  
Finally, the breath ran out. It was gone and he couldn’t find any more. He collapsed to his knees. Ben ran forward to him, and caught him, keeping his face from hitting the ground.   
  
Eddie was crying, now. Finally, the dam had burst and there were no sobs, because there was no breath, but there were tears. Distantly he heard Mike say, “Eddie, please don’t cry.”   
  
“Eddie, you have to breathe. Please, Eddie.” Ben said, soothingly, rubbing Eddie’s back. Something he’d done before. A long time ago.    
  
Any time Ben was around when Eddie had an attack, Ben would soothe him. Ben had sat with him that time his inhaler was empty and Bill had to go get help. He’d sat with him just like this. The first time they’d ever even spoken, Ben had cared about him.    
  
It hurt to think about. To think that deep down, he and Ben were still the same people, and that meant everyone else was too. It hurt so much to think about the kids they had been, and how, though all of them were technically gone, some of them were truly and properly wiped off the planet.    
  
“Why don’t you all care?” He asked. But he was looking straight at Bill. “You don’t care that I’m covered in his blood? That his last word was  _ my  _ name?”   
  
Eddie swallowed hard. “You asked me, Bill. You asked me if I wanted Richie to die and I fucking told you, didn’t I? I didn’t want him to die. I didn’t want to have to watch him die, and you left me alone and he-”    
  
Bill got down on his knees in front of Eddie.    
  
“He died in my fucking arms, Bill. And every second that doesn’t  _ devastate  _ you…” Eddie looked down. His eyebrows drew down in anger. “It makes me hate you.” 


	2. The Children We Were

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> alternate/extended ending. Picks up directly after the last line of the fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bonus content, bonus song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0KGDpttlFg

There was a look on Bill’s face that Eddie had never seen before. He supposed this was an emotion Bill had never felt.    


_ The children we were… _ _  
_ _  
_ Not even in a childhood argument had Eddie said that to Bill, and they’d known each other the longest of anyone here. Been through more together.    
  
Bill had been at Eddie’s father’s funeral. Eddie had been at Georgie’s funeral.    
  
It wasn’t enough, just to have a past with someone. It hurt Eddie so bad that it wasn’t enough. 

In his exhaustion a burst of rage gave him enough energy to push off Ben and scramble to his feet.    
  
“You all fucking… You probably thought Derry was the nightmare, didn’t you?” Eddie wiped his tears on his sleeve. “ _ Idiots.” _ _  
_ _  
_ He dusted himself off. “Those fucking lives you were living when you got out of here, the lives we have to go back to… The life I’m just  _ now  _ realizing was shittier than I ever even knew, that was when we were asleep. Derry was real. And I don’t know what’s going to happen when I step across the border of this town. When I leave this county, when I leave Maine… I don’t know if I’m going to forget again or- or what, but I hope to God that I do. I fucking  _ pray  _ that I get to forget this shit.” He said, looking down at the blood on his shirt.   
  
“I pray that I get to forget all of you.” He said, looking back up at them. The anger was still strong in his eyes, but the edges were soft. They were sad. “Because I don’t know how I’m going to be able to go through my life h-hating the only people that ever actually loved me.”   
  
Mike took a step forward. “Eds-” He said, arm outstretched to catch him. Eddie dodged.    
  
“You remembered the whole fucking time.” Eddie said, quietly, staring up at Mike. “You never forgot them and you still-”    
  
Eddie held up his hands, covered in Richie’s dried blood. “This is all that’s left of your friend because you left him in the lair of the monster that haunted you your entire life.”   
  
Mike felt his heart sink into his stomach.   
  
“And you want me to play in the quarry like we’re 12.” Eddie continued. “You want me not to cry.”

He and Mike stared at each other for a long moment. 

“Couldn’t any of you bother to spare a tear for them?” Eddie asked, anger making his voice rasp.   
  
“Go. Go play in the quarry. Go pretend you’re fucking 12 years old.” He peered over Mike towards Ben. “Go have your ‘ _ nice’.”  _   
  
Ben turned his face away and Beverly grabbed his arm.    
  
“I don’t want it.” Eddie said, loudly. 

“For the first time in my life I am  _ dreading  _ taking a shower, because everything I have left of Richie is going to wash away with all the other shit. Like he’s just part of the shit. Necessary sacrifice. Collateral damage. That’s how you’re all thinking, isn’t it?”   
  
Bill swallowed loudly and no one said anything. 

“Fuck you.” Eddie said, turning and walking away.

  
This time, no one tried to stop him.    


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really should have just left it at what it was, because Cooper said it was a good ending and I trust them, but I just... As much as I complain about Stephen King including too much bullshit that isn't essential in his writing... I couldn't resist releasing this too. I couldn't kill this darling, I just had to separate her. Sorry if it ruins the original for you.

**Author's Note:**

> I know I have multi-chap WIPs to be updating, but since the world's gone all weird, so have I. Things at home are strange and I still haven't figured out how to cope. But I do love my stories and the characters and I do not ever intend to stop writing. Thank you for your continued patience with me, and I hope these one-shots are tiding you over. 
> 
> I don't remember what the dream I had before I wrote this was even about. The things that live in my brain are secretive. Something I do know is that I've never felt as lonely in my life as I have lately, because even the lines on my hands don't seem familiar. I hope none of you feel like that, and if you do, well, we're alone together.
> 
> remember to look at my writing twitter https://twitter.com/jonesyslug it's under construction for a grand reopening, but often there's fun little behind the scenes shit there, unpublished bits, fan art, things like that. I'd appreciate a peek. I love you all. Thank you for reading, and if it's not too taxing, I'd love a comment, even if it's just an emoji. 
> 
> Acknowledgments: 
> 
> Thanks Cooper (thefithroommate) as always, for reading this for me and giving me advice. (I know you didn't read the alternate ending but... uh, surprise?) 
> 
> Thanks to Motel Clownifornia for giving me a place where I feel happy and have encouraging friends. I used to be a real bean counter, obsessing over kudos and comments and read counts, trying to climb the ladder towards... something, and you guys helped me realize I don't want to climb that ladder. I want to write things that are informed by my thoughts and emotions and share those things with people who understand. 
> 
> So, thanks for getting me out of the Mean Girls popularity contest and into my own little comfortable studio in my mind where I can just make things I'm truly passionate about.


End file.
